


of all the stars the most beautiful

by starraya



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 15:46:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15952502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starraya/pseuds/starraya
Summary: 18 year old Berenice Wolfe goes every night to her local music hall to watch one act. Rena Butler. A girl who dresses up in men’s suits and sings about her sweetheart. Bernie dares to hope that the songs might, one day, be about her. But Serena’s life isn’t as glamorous as it seems and fame proves even more fickle than love.Based on the Sarah Waters novel Tipping the Velvet. (It’s an Victorian euphemism for cunninglingus and if that isn’t enough to make you want to read the novel, what is?)





	of all the stars the most beautiful

Berenice Wolfe is eighteen when she finally works it out. She’d grown up in the town of Whitstable, famous for its oysters, working in her father’s oyster parlour. When she was a young girl, running along the sandy beach, she used to think that as long as she could hear the sound of the waves, she’d be happy. Whitstable was her whole world, with her Ma and Pa and her older sister Alice. Until last night.

Alice has a beau who works at The Canterbury Palace of Varieties, a boy called Tony Reeves, who gets them seats at knock-down prices or for free. Bernie and Alice spend nearly all of their Saturday nights there, three gay hours of laughter and singing along to the artistes. The sisters are free to spend every night there, if they want, when their father’s restaurant grows less busy in the summer months. It is one sticky, hot July night that Bernie sees Miss Rena Butler for the first time.

She isn’t the star act. The music hall manager has hired a London celebrity, Gully Sunderland, one of the best comic singers to persuade theatregoers to stuff themselves into the oven-hot music hall. As Bernie and Alice sit in their seats up in the gallery, the stale air is full of the typical scent of hair-oil and tobacco and sweat, but, also, anticipation. The glamour of London’s West End, for one week only, is here in Whitstable.

There are new acts hired to perform before Gully as well. But, even if you ask Bernie the next Sunday morning, she won’t be able to recall the first three acts. Maybe she will hazard a guess at their specialties, comedians or acrobats or mentalists, but their names and faces will be eclipsed by another’s. They leave the stage, withdraw behind the curtain and disappear forever more in Bernie’s memory.

The chairman drums up excitement for the next act. “Ladies and Gentlemen raise your voices, as I give to you, direct from the Phoenix Theatre, Dover, our very own Kentish swell, our diminutive Faversham masher . . . Miss Rena Butler!”

The orchestra strikes up, the curtain rises, and a girl stands in the centre of a rosy limelight.

The girl wears a gentlemen’s suit – the handsomest suit Bernie has ever seen. Crisp and perfectly tailored to her frame, lined at the cuffs and flaps with silk. There is a rose in her lapel. Beneath her waistcoat, there is a stiff, dazzlingly white shirt. She wears a bowtie and a topper and when she takes the topper off - to salute the audience with a ‘hallo’ – Bernie sees that her hair is cropped, like a boy’s, but, Bernie thinks, no boy she’s come across has ever suited their short hair like Rena Butler does.

It curls at her temple, and over her ears, and the colour, a dark brown that is a stark contrast to her shirt, glints in the limelight. Bernie’s fingers twitch as she wonders how it would feel to touch Miss Butler’s hair. Marcus, a boy that sometimes takes Bernie on walks along the beach and kisses her on the cheek, has hair – and lips – that feel rough as sand.

Rena Butler’s lips are full and rosy, her face smooth and there is a curious dip in her chin. Her figure is slim, and she is tall, like a boy, especially as her shoes have a two-inch heel, but her bosom and hips curve like no boy’s will ever do. The thrill of watching a male-impersonator for the audience, Alice’s beau, Tony, once told Bernie, was still knowing that it was a girl underneath all the swagger. And what a swagger Rena Butler has! She raises an eyebrow and thrusts her hands in her pockets, stalking the stage like she is the main act of the night. She sings with a strange mixture of innocence and confidence. Her voice is sweet, but strong. It intoxicates everyone, suspending the audience in silence for the entirety of her first song.

Her accent switches between music-hall cockney and theatrical-genteel and broad pure Kent. When her customary fifteen minutes are over, she is cheered back on the stage. She sings a ballad about a lost sweetheart and her voice turns tender, almost sorrowful – as if she has lived far more many years than the eighteen or nineteen she looks – and she draws the rose from her lapel. She brushes it against her lips and holds it out. Her eyes roam the theatre for the prettiest girl. The rose flies into the stalls. A girl yelps. The crowd goes wild, the audience rising to it’s feet, stamping and clapping.

But Bernie’s doesn’t move an inch. Her eyes are fixed on the girl, on committing every detail of her appearance to memory. She is all too aware that Miss Butler will soon wave her hat, say goodbye and leave. And when she does, Bernie’s eyes lose their focus. The crowd roars as Gully Sutherland, the star of the show, starts his comic routine, but Bernie can’t concentrate. Her blood is thrumming, her heart pounding and the nape of her neck is damp with sweat. It is as if Rena Butler has lit a fire in the very pit of her stomach, and Bernie is sure, that if anyone placed a hand to her forehand, her skin would scorch theirs.

“I’m hot,” she whispers to Alice, who is howling along like the rest of the theatre to Gully’s antics. “I’m going downstairs.”

Bernie pushes her way through the gallery, and makes for the stairs, heading for the theatre entrance. She hopes the fresh air will cool her down, but it offers little relief. Even this late, the day has lost little of its warmth. Bernie brings her gloved fingers to her lips, like Rena Butler had done with the rose. Would she ever feel cold again? She couldn’t, possibly, ever feel cold again. A desire flamed bright inside her. To watch Rena Butler again and to hold her rose within her hands, to stroke it’s petals and press her lips against them.

-

“So, what did you think, eh?” Tony asks Bernie and Alice after the show – Alice insisted on visiting his room. “Isn’t that Rena Butler a perfect West End swell? If she carries on stirring the crowd like that, Uncle will be extending her contract to her Christmas.”

“Oh, she was marvellous,” Bernie gasped, excitement making her voice high. Imagine, five more months of Rena Butler swaggering along the stage of The Canterbury Palace! A mere 15 minutes train journey from Bernie. “She’s the best turn I saw here or anywhere. Your Uncle would be a fool not to keep her on.”

Tony laughs, but Bernie’s smile drops. What an agony it would be! A pleasure and an agony, to have Rena Butler performing so close, and to not watch her, but spend the evening doing needlework, humming the songs of the music-hall to herself, humming Rena Butler’s songs, when her ears could be drinking up the sweet honey of her voice.

“Oh, I do wish I could see Miss Butler again.”

“And so you shall,” Alice says, “Saturday night.” They have all planned to come to the palace, Bernie, Alice, their Ma and Pa. Alice’s uses the voice she used on Bernie when Bernie was a restless little girl who wouldn’t sit still at the dinner table or gobbled up her food too quickly. _Calm, Berenice,_ Alice would tell her. _Everything in moderation._

A faint blush tinges Bernie’s face. She had been uncharacteristically giddy just, like a schoolgirl. Alice will think her childish for complaining how far away Saturday is, but Tony reads Bernie’s face.

“Who said you had to wait ‘til Saturday though? You can come tomorrow night, and any other night, so far as I’m concerned.” He puts his arm around Alice’s waist and Bernie knows he’s just saying it to impress Alice. “And if there ain’t a seat for you in the gallery, we’ll put you up in the box, and you can gaze at Miss Butler to your heart’s content from there!”

Bernie’s eyes widen. “Really?”

“Of course?”

“And in the box?”

He nods. As thanks, Bernie nods back – an acknowledgement of a deal – and leaves him and Alice alone in the room. He will want to kiss her, Bernie knows. Before the door closes behind her, she hears Tony say to Alice: “I reckon Miss Butler reminds her of a chap in her town.”

-

When Bernie announces her intention to return to theatre the very next night, her parents are amused, but they give her their permission – Bernie thinks she would have gone, even if they didn’t. Her parents are pleased to see her so animated and joyful. They are of the opinion, that, for the young, summer is a time of gaiety. Bernie works as hard as everyone else during the long, winter months and never complains about how red and sore her hands become from opening the oysters. Although, in her girlhood, she had been a wilder spirit than Alice, an early walker, a keen adventurer – well, for as far, as her unsteady three-year-old feet could take her – Bernie grew up to be a good, obedient daughter.

She certainly isn’t one of those girls who associate with the wrong sort of men. The girls who need hasty weddings. Bernie’s parents are almost glad that Marcus, the vicar’s son, hasn’t even proposed to Bernie yet. All in good time, they think. Bernie has plenty of child-bearing years ahead of her. No need to rush into things. There’s still time to indulge their youngest, before she becomes a wife and mother.

They don’t say a word when Bernie puts on her best Sunday frock. Last night, she had worn an ordinary dress, but tonight she will be in the box, not lost among a sea of people in the gallery and all eyes will be able to view her. Miss Butler’s especially.

Bernie spends all of Miss Butler’s performance admiring her eyes. Up in the gallery, she couldn’t see them as clearly as she can now. They are a deep, sparkling brown. Her eyelids are lined with black and her lashes thick with a similar stuff. Bernie feels as if it is barely fifteen seconds between Miss Butler taking off her hat in greeting and once again in goodbye.

She doesn’t stay to watch Gully Sutherland.

Her parents listen as Bernie tells them of how Miss Butler was even better than last night and what a treat Saturday would be for them. Her parents watch as she goes a third, a fourth and then a fifth time to the theatre.

“You must know all the words by now!” Her father laughs. “You could do the routine better than Miss Butler.”

Before Bernie can rush in and say how no one could ever match Miss Butler’s performance, her mother turns to her father. “Oh, our Berenice has far more sense than that! Honestly, what a fantastical notion!”

“I only pity poor Marcus,” her father says, and Bernie’s brow furrows in confusion. “There’s a boy, isn’t there? A boy in the orchestra you’ve got your eye on?”

It’s too close to the truth and Bernie’s cheeks burn. Her eyes drop to the floor. Her father takes it as an affirmation.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “If he’s more to your fancy, then we won’t stand in your way.”

“Young hearts,” Bernie’s mother sighs, “so fickle.” But there’s no disapproval in her voice. She herself married when she was twenty-one. She trusts Bernie to make the right decision in the end.

The gaiety of summer doesn’t last forever.

 -

“There isn’t a boy in the pit that you go to see, is there?” Alice asks her when Bernie returns from the theatre on Friday night. Bernie is brushing her hair, ready for bed. Alice is already in their bed, waiting for Bernie to join her. Bernie puts her hair brush on the side and climbs into bed.

“Alice,” she says, “what do you feel when Tony kisses you?”

“Same as you with Marcus, I suppose.”

“I don’t feel much of anything.” Bernie lies on her back, stares up at the ceiling. “Marcus once proposed to me – I mean he only mentioned it in passing, but he meant it. He was going to ask Pa, but I told him I needed time.” Bernie chews on her bottom lip. “Alice, I don’t think I ever want to get married.”

“It’s normal to be frightened of – you know, but that’s not all there is to it.”

But they both know that isn’t what Bernie means.

-

Saturday arrives. Word has spread all over Whitstable about the marvellous Gully Sutherland. Bernie’s neighbours, her aunt, her uncle, their three sons, as well as her parents, all catch the train with her to the Canterbury Palace. They flock into the gallery, Bernie thinks, like seagulls, squawking with excitement over tonight’s show.

Before the curtain rises for the first time, Bernie knows she will resent their company all night. She yearns to be in the box, where no one jostles her arm or leans over, breath hot on the back of her head, to ask how long it will be until the show starts. Up in the gallery, she could be any old spectator, coming to see the show for a few laughs, for a chance to forget one’s true self, one’s true life and to sing and roar and whistle like a drunkard for a few hours, before returning to their dull, monotonous lives.

For Bernie, the show is so much more. Rena Butler’s performance is so much more. Watching it, is the only time she ever truly feels alive, ever truly feels herself. All the other theatre-goers fade into nothingness, and it is just Bernie and Miss Butler. And although they have never so much as exchanged one word, Bernie feels closer to her than she’s ever felt to anyone else.

Sometimes she convinces herself that Miss Butler must feel it too, this strange, invisible pull between them as if their wrists are tied together by a ribbon, but tonight she sees her thoughts for what they are: silly daydreams. Miss Butler saunters on the stage, and every smile, every wink, every song, Bernie realises, is not for her, not for anyone in the theatre, but someone nestled in Miss Butler’s heart.

However, when Miss Butler takes out the rose from her lapel, Bernie dares to think otherwise. For Miss Butler, she’s certain of it, turns to glance at the empty box. Bernie’s box.

It is just her imagination, Bernie tells herself on the train back to Whitstable. She desperately wants to ask one of her companions if they saw Miss Butler look at the box too, but then it would be obvious. Everyone would know the real reason why she went to the theatre every night.

That fear doesn’t stop Bernie from going again Sunday night, though. It doesn’t stop her from lying to Marcus, telling him that she’s tired when he asks to take her out.

“You’ve perked up rather quickly,” Alice says when Bernie dons her best Sunday frock and a new hat trimmed with lavender, but Bernie rushes out of the house – she’s late for her train – before Alice can say, or imply, more.

Bernie misses her usual train and when she arrives at the theatre the show is already three acts in. Before she’s even settled in the box, before she’s had time to catch her breath after dashing from tbe train station, Miss Rena Butler appears. The crowd welcomes her loudly, louder than Bernie has heard before. She sings the same songs, wears the same suit, but for the first time, there are lavender gloves in her pocket. Bernie doubts any one will notice such a small change of detail, but she can’t help but think of her own lavender-trimmed hat and how it matches the gloves.

What a handsome couple they would make she thinks, and at the same time, as if reading her mind, Miss Butler looks up at Bernie. It’s a piercing kind of look, and although it only lasts a second or two, it can’t be mistaken as accidental. Heat flushes through Bernie. Her mouth turns dry. Miss Butler performs as perfectly as she always does, never missing a note or a step, but her eyes flit, numerous times, to the box. By the time she sings her final lovelorn ballad and plucks the rose from her lapel, Bernie’s hands are clutching the railing – as if she might suddenly swoon, even sitting down. She feels queazy, unsteady, as if she were in a boat, tossed by stormy waves, about to capsize.

Miss Butler brushes her lips against the rose. She doesn’t even spare a glance at the stalls or the gallery, but instead she steps to her left. To Bernie’s box. She stands at the very edge of the stage. Bernie swallows. She lifts the rose up. Lets it loose to fly like a red bird. Bernie catches it. Holds the delicate stem within her un-gloved fingers, scared too much pressure might cause the flower to suddenly disintegrate.

A small, knowing smile plays on Miss Butler’s lips, before she turns back to face the audience and bows. As soon as the curtain falls behind her, Bernie is gripped by a ridiculous urge to swing herself over the railings and jump down – it isn’t far – and race onto the stage, and find the seam of the crimson curtains, gently draw them open, slip through them and take Rena Butler in her arms. Bernie wants to kiss her, on the lips. She, unconsciously, brings the rose to her lips, to mimic her dream, but freezes as she realises that the clamour coming from the stalls isn’t for the next act, but for her. A hundred curious faces are looking upon hers.

Bernie lowers the rose, tucks it into the belt of her dress and – though her heart beat wildly in her chest – she lifts her chin and stares forward, face expressionless, as if patiently waiting for the next act, as if she had already forgotten the previous one. But how could she forget! As soon as the curtain rises again, Bernie leaves. She can’t stop smiling. She begins to quietly sing the ballad as she crosses the lobby.

Someone calls her name.

“Hey, hey,” Tony runs up to her, breathless. “I’ve got a message for you. Someone to see you.”

Bernie stands still in the doorway of the theatre, stunned – wondering if maybe there was a poor boy in the orchestra pit who did, in fact, have an eye on _her_.

“Miss Butler,” Tony grins, “Miss Butler would like a word.”

“A word? With me?” Bernie can’t think of a reason why Miss Butler would want her company.

“She asked after you, the girl in the box. And she wants to meet you. Tonight. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, a bit of housekeeping. Though this story will follow the same premise as the novel, Serena’s personality will not match Kitty’s nor will Bernie have the prositution/ Diana arc, because frankly, I don’t want to write about lecherous men - and women - taking advantage of vulnerable girls in the most disgusting ways possible. 
> 
> I have used the details and events (such as the town of Whistable, the characters of Tony Reeves and Gully Sutherland, the rose) in the book for this chapter, as well as some of the dialogue, but I haven’t taken any of Waters really fancy figurative language, like her metaphors to describe how Nan feels, because that felt like downright cheating. So the metaphors and similies are mine. 
> 
> The story will also increasingly diverge from the novel in later chapters. 
> 
> I thought I was done writing fanfiction for this fandom. It appears not.


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